Brewers Add Non-Alcoholic Drinks as Polls Show Young Drinkers Have Health Concerns

Friday America's surgeon general warned that alcohol is 'a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States,' and recommended an update to the warning labels on alcohol.

So what happens to beer and spirits companies? They've actually been preparing for something like this for years, reports CNN:

Major brewers, including Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch InBev, and spirit giants such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard, have all grown their portfolios with new non-alcoholic drinks to attract an increasing number of consumers, particularly younger ones, who are ditching drinking because of health concerns. A Gallup poll from August found that almost half of Americans say that having one or two drinks a day is bad for a person's health — the highest percentage recorded in the survey's 23 years, and younger adults were most likely to say drinking is bad for health. The poll also showed that just 58% of adults said they drink alcohol, down from 67% in 2022, although Gallup notes it's relatively close to the historical average of 63% going back to 1939.

But that doesn't predict a doomsday scenario for Big Alcohol. It actually could be good for their bottom lines: A December report from IWSR, a leading drinks analysis firm, said that the non-alcoholic drinks global market is 'experiencing a transformative period of growth, driven by evolving consumer behaviors and the momentum of no-alcohol.' The trend, to be led by the United States, is expected to grow by $4 billion by 2028 in the firm's forecast. Non-alcoholic drinks are even 'skewing younger than the core buyer demographic across markets, and demonstrate higher frequency and intensity of consumption,' signaling that there's a sustained thirst for booze-less beverages.
Anheuser-Busch said in its 2023 annual report that its non-alcoholic beers 'continued to outperform, delivering high-teens revenue growth.'

And the staff economist for the Brewers Association told CNN that non-alcoholic beer sales have jumped more than 100% between 2021 and 2024.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.